Get him to the Greek

Record company intern Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) has three days to get rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) from London to the Greek Theater in LA. Green pitched the idea to his boss Sergio Roma (Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs) for a 10th anniversary concert of Snow’s biggest live show. The concert will revive Snow’s career and make millions for the company. If only Green can get him there.

Green makes a poor first impression on Snow. He hopes the next 71 hours go better.

Brand is genius expanding on his Forgetting Sarah Marshall character. He is easily believable as a washed up former rock god. What was a surprise is the depth Brand brought to the character. There are more levels to the character that I was expecting. He was more than just a drunk, narcissistic celebrity who doesn’t think past the moment he is living in. He is all those things, just those things and more.

I expected it to be a lot of juvenile humor. However, I was pleasantly surprised the movie had more to offer than just bathroom humor. Brand did more than act drunk throughout the film. He runs the whole gamut of emotions. He plays a real character, not a caricature like in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. There are times when he is the tortured artist, the drunken idiot, the manipulative addict and an actual person.

Hill plays the awkward heavyset guy, so pretty much the same character he always does. There really isn’t much depth to the character, but he is stil la loveable guy who is in way over his head. The three days with Snow is both the best and worst of Green’s life. His quiet little existence did not at all prepare him for 72 hours with Snow. He has to lie, manipulate and at times enable Snow to get him half across the world in time for the concert.

On stage Aldous Snow is a rock god, off stage, he is a trainwreck.

What should be a simple task is turned into a major quest punctuated with mini adventures. Green has to play middle-man between Snow and his boss, record executive Sergio Roma (Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs). Combs is hilarious as the off-his-rocker Roma. Watching him, you think Roma is off in his own little world, but I have a feeling that music industry people are like that. Viewers may find it hard to see through his public persona, but from an objective perspective, his scenes were some of the funniest of the movie.

Get him to the Greek is worth seeing and you won’t feel bad paying full price. You don’t have to totally turn off your brain to watch the film. There are some subtleties and depth that you might miss. Kick back, enjoy it and at the end you will be wishing you had a fur wall. Get him to the Greek is rated R for strong sexual content, drug use and pervasive language.